Press Release

Tuesday 14 May 2013

New facilities officially opened at Wicor Recreation Ground

The new £700,000 changing rooms at Wicor Recreation ground in Portchester have been officially opened.

The facilities, which include six team changing rooms, officials changing rooms, and accessible toilets, will be run by Fareham Borough Council. They will be available to all local teams using the pitches.

The project was a partnership between the Council and the Football Foundation, who contributed 31% (£231,000) of the funding.

Executive Leader of Fareham Borough Council, Councillor Seán Woodward, unveiled a special plaque at the site to mark the opening. He said: "Fareham Borough Council has worked on this project alongside the Football Foundation, Hampshire FA and AFC Portchester. The result of this collaborative working is these fantastic new changing rooms, which will benefit the Borough's junior and adult footballers for generations to come. Today's opening means together with the new Community Centre completed in December, nearly £2.7million has now been spent on new facilities in Portchester."

Paul Thorogood, Chief Executive of the Football Foundation, said: "It is so rewarding to see this new facility completed and ready for use by the local community. There is a very strong correlation between the quality of sports facilities that are available at the community, grassroots level and healthy participation levels. The better the quality of sports facilities, the more likely people will enjoy the experience of playing sport for the love of doing so and will, therefore, be more likely to remain involved in regular sport. This can only be good for the general health of the nation as a whole."